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Semenya will compete in the 2023 World Cross Country Championships Mixed Relay event at Mount Panorama on February 18, 2023.
CNN –
Caster Semenya, the South African Olympic gold medalist in running, has won her appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) calling for the lifting of “discriminatory” testosterone limits for female athletes, the ECtHR said on Tuesday.
Semenya is hyperandrogenic – meaning she has naturally high levels of testosterone – and is fighting against rules introduced in 2019 by World Athletics – the athletics federation – that regulate hormone levels in female athletes.
In its judgment, the ECtHR found that there had been a “violation of the principle of non-discrimination in connection with the right to respect for private life and a violation of the right to an effective remedy”.
Semenya won the 800m gold medal at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. However, the new rules meant she had to take testosterone-reducing drugs in order to compete internationally over distances of between 400m and a mile – something she refused. Due to the rule changes, she was unable to defend her 800m title in Tokyo 2021.
Three-time 800m world champion Semenya lost an appeal to the Sports Arbitration Board in April 2019. Then, in September 2020, she lost an appeal in Switzerland’s Federal Court, but vowed to continue “fighting for the human rights of women athletes.”
Semenya appealed to the ECtHR in February 2021, saying that by dismissing the South African athlete’s appeal, the Swiss Federal Court had “failed” to fulfill its obligations to uphold her human rights.
“The Court found in particular that the applicant was not afforded sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards in Switzerland to allow her complaints to be effectively examined, particularly as her complaints concerned substantiated and credible allegations of discrimination based on her elevated testosterone levels.” by differences in sex development (DSD)”, according to the ECtHR in its judgement.
“Particularly with regard to the high level of personal commitment of the plaintiff – namely the participation in athletics competitions at international level and the associated professional practice – it resulted that Switzerland had exceeded the narrow discretionary powers granted to it in the present case. This involved discrimination based on sex and sexual characteristics, which required “very strong grounds” to justify.
“Because the stakes are high for the applicant in this case and the limited discretion afforded to the respondent state should have prompted a thorough institutional and procedural review, but the applicant was unable to obtain such a review,” the court said also found that the domestic remedies available to the applicant could not be considered effective in the circumstances of the present case.”
In a statement sent to CNN, World Athletics said it “notes the judgment of the deeply divided chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)”.
“We remain of the opinion that the DSD [differences in sex development] “Regulations are a necessary, appropriate and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the women’s category, as both the Sports Arbitration Court and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court have determined after a detailed and professional assessment of the evidence,” it said.
“The lawsuit was filed against the State of Switzerland and not against World Athletics. We will work with the Swiss government on the next steps and, given the strong dissent in the decision, encourage them to request the referral of the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR for a final and final decision.
“In the meantime, the current DSD regulations, approved by the World Athletics Council in March 2023, remain in place.”
Variations in people’s reproductive anatomy, chromosomal patterns, or other characteristics that may not fit the typical binary definitions of female or male are defined as DSD.
It’s difficult to estimate how many people have DSD traits – many live their entire lives without ever knowing they have one. Scientists estimate that up to 1 in 50 people are born with DSD traits.